Last December, amid the holiday rush, the US air force quietly announced that it had selected Mountain Home Air Force Base as the preferred location for the long-term training of a contingent of pilots and flight crews from the Saudi Royal Air Force as part of a $60bn arms deal between the US and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced that autumn.

Under the mammoth military package, Saudi Arabia is set to receive 84 new F-15E Strike Eagles - advanced fighter aircraft designed for air-to-air and air-to-ground combat missions. Capable of flying day or night in all weather conditions and reaching speeds in excess of twice the speed of sound, each F-15, packing missiles, bombs and a 20mm cannon, is a formidable weapon.

Under the air force's proposal, Saudi pilots will learn how to fly the advanced fighters at Mountain Home Air Force Base for five years, from 2014 to 2019, with the possibility of a longer commitment left open. [...] At present, plans call for the Saudi squadron to be composed of roughly 12 aircraft with 50 pilots and 100 to 200 maintenance personnel, some of whom will be accompanied by their families.

"The permanent party would consist primarily of enlisted members and a small cadre of officers," according to an air force spokesperson. "Potential living arrangements for the Saudi personnel are yet to be finalised, but we expect that unaccompanied and accompanied housing both on and off base would be considered by the [Royal Saudi Air Force].

Watch out, Varus! Now the military bases will be over run with hundreds upon hundreds of radical Islamofascists!

Eh, they're only F-15e's right? According to the current regieme, our F-22's should be able to magically shoot them all down at 500 to 1 odds if there was ever a problem, so no need for more F-22's right?

The US doesn't heavily need a defensive airforce at present. They use strikers and drones. In any situation they could concievably use a defensive wing, atomics would be in play. Building and selling aerial weapons systems is a good move, especially since they need the Saudis to have a larger strike capacity, so they can act for us in various theaters.

We'd gladly take some of those over the waste-of-money that is the Eurofighters, but then again we're known for making poor choices. Like scrapping the Harrier jets and keeping the inferior Tornadoes in operation...

...Then again we've also took our aircraft carriers out of operation too due to budget cuts, and then end up paying twice as much on air-based refueling (because we no longer have any aircraft carriers to deploy closer to the target area)

Things the US does to keep their allies happy is not what I call an Islamic Jahad in the making. We've trained many others including Bin Laden over the years. Sometimes we regret what we do. I hardly think the Saudi's will be sending planes to destroy American targets.

Things the US does to keep their allies happy is not what I call an Islamic Jahad in the making. We've trained many others including Bin Laden over the years. Sometimes we regret what we do. I hardly think the Saudi's will be sending planes to destroy American targets.

Some people regret what we do, others will still argue that it was a good idea to interfere in the Islamic uprising against the democratically elected Socialist government in Afghanistan in the 80s. Those people are dumb.

I would rather Obama pitting out allies against one another then Bush pitting our allies against US.

Besides its sound tactical strategy, Let them fight it out and then clean up the already weakened winner. Or in this case the winner owes you for giving them the equipment in the first place so hold it over their heads to keep them in check. Almost no matter how you look at it it's a win for the U.S.

Did I really get auto-defaulted for posting in a thread more than 30 days old? Y'know;you guys are lucky if you get 3 new interesting threads a day at this point, right? and lucky if you get 10 interesting postings a day that aren't some 4Chan fanboy mutterings. Maybe such a thing is considered high-browed here these days. If that's the case consider me troll ipso facto.

Did I really get auto-defaulted for posting in a thread more than 30 days old? Y'know;you guys are lucky if you get 3 new interesting threads a day at this point, right? and lucky if you get 10 interesting postings a day that aren't some 4Chan fanboy mutterings. Maybe such a thing is considered high-browed here these days. If that's the case consider me troll ipso facto.

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This one gets auto-defaulted for karma ********* The last one likely got hit because it was a nonsensical response to a dead thread for a Dixieland ***-hat.

If you're unhappy with the level of content around here, DaiMon Tarr quotes are probably the wrong way to go to raise it. You should try another idiotic attempt at rationalizing faith.

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I had a very witty signature once, but apparently it offended the sensibilities of some of the frailer constitutions that frequent this particular internet message board.

[The rest of this message has been censored and I can't tell you what I actually think of you]

Did I really get auto-defaulted for posting in a thread more than 30 days old? Y'know;you guys are lucky if you get 3 new interesting threads a day at this point, right? and lucky if you get 10 interesting postings a day that aren't some 4Chan fanboy mutterings. Maybe such a thing is considered high-browed here these days. If that's the case consider me troll ipso facto.

Never confuse your inference as the listener for an implication of the speaker.

Good games are subjective like good food is subjective. You're not going to seriously tell me that there's not a psychological basis for why pizza is great and lutefisk is revolting. The thing about subjectivity is that, as subjects go, humans actually have a great deal in common.